The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c7.s2.10

c7.s2.10

Elsewhere, an Indian influence appears to be quite manifest. The biography, or better still, undoubtedly the autobiography of the doctor of Khusro I (king from 531 to 579), Barzoe, who had brought from a journey in India the Book of Kalilagh and Damnagh, that is, a version of the *Pañcatantra*, contains a summary of embryology, which has, it seems, justly been recognised by Hertel, as containing typical Indian notions.⁴ This is how, according to Barzoe, delivery is caused by a wind and this is precisely the teaching of classical Indian medicine. But even in this case, where the reality of a contact with India of the VIth century is beyond any doubt, as it had brought the Pehlavi imitation of the *Pañcatantra*, it will not be possible to assert that the notion of the rôle ascribed to wind in delivery was known in Iran before Barzoe. He was more likely to have found this notion again in India instead of having brought it from there. Actually, this notion could have had its origin either in Indo-Iranian pre-history or could have been borrowed from India before the 6th century B.C. The first eventuality cannot be rejected because, as we will see, the concept of the physiological rôle of the wind is very old. The second one is made possible by what is known of the Indian contribution to the famous school of medicine established in the 5th century at Gundesapuhr, in Susiana, by the Nestorians expelled from the Byzantine Empire.¹